In the Swing of things

It's great to be back. I had a very nice vacation. Have practiced a few times since I got back and I'm buzzing again with yoga! Friday (last) was my first class teaching after my little break. I was a little worried I'd, like, forget everything - it was the first break I took since training. Happy to report, it's all still in my brain, thankfully. I'm not a strict dialogue-ist but I do aim to get all the dialogue into my poses between first and second sets. When I say that, I mean the command, rather than the verbatim. "Create pressure with the left foot sole against the right thigh bicep of the thigh muscle" or whatever it is becomes left foot against the right inner thigh. Etc.

(though, as I listen to dialogue in my car sometimes I get obsessed with weird lines like that and want to have it in my arsenal to throw out on occasion).

Friday I was feeling mellow and taught a more calm, focused class. A student talked about jaw tension so I was giving cues about relaxing the jaw and neck and shoulders throughout. It was interesting! A student said, "Signature class!" (he's taken many of my classes.)

I taught the Sunday 4pm and my usual Monday 6pm and Monday's class was amazing. I can't imagine what life would be like if Bikram teaching were my only job. In one sense, it would be awesome - teaching two days in a row, my Monday night class was spectacular. (On the other hand, I think teaching tons of Bikram and living in the studio is not sustainable in the longterm.)

I thought I taught a very challenging standing series. Usually that means that you taught a LONG standing series, which means you lose out on the time in the floor postures to make up for it. But no - hard standing series with full rest and everyone moving in and out of poses together, hot hot hot, hit the floor at 51-52 minutes in. POIFEKT!

Can you believe the standing series on the Bikram cd is 48-49 minutes long! Even with all that talking at the beginning. He gives no rest between postures at all. That's true of training as well. But in my classroom, the students run out of gas if you don't get them to breathe between standing balancing poses for a second. On the CD, I noticed, standing separate leg forehead to knee is quite short.

Anyway... Personal practice - I have come back into practice gently, Friday after I taught I practiced and ended up just resting after one set of camel. Sunday I practiced in the studio alone with the Bikram CD. I miss that guy. I practiced hard just because I heard his voice. Monday I was a bit fatigued but stayed with it. It's so funny how different parts of the series become hard/easy. Right now I'm loving standing separate head to knee. Even standing head to knee and bow are feeling fun to me right now.

I miss miss miss my backbends. I had great, deep, few feet away from the floor backbend in the first posture before training and at the beginning of training, but alas, it's long gone at the moment.

So on the non-yoga front, I want to post a little bit about my relationship with food etc. I had a really tough couple of weeks there. I was doing South Beach, hubby lost a bunch of weight, I did not. Not like he did. It really killed me. I was getting really "diety" at the end, obsessing a bit about weight loss and food.

Because of my COE history, I know full well that true dieting is something I will never be able to do. I am not a linear weight-loss type of gal. My food and my emotions are still entwined, though I am at a much better place now than before. So anyway, with peer support, I decided to take two weeks off to eat whatever I liked, and to exercise as much as I liked, including vacation time where I did not do any bikram.

So the great thing is, I enjoyed myself immensely. I noticed that because of all the work I'd done, when I was "splurging", the portion sizes were smaller. My body did not feel nearly as good as when I was eating less and drinking just a little on the weekend. I really noticed feeling sluggish and full in the mornings.

We're back to our fabulous meal planning and shopping and cooking and both hubby and I are so glad to get back into it. And, with all that, I may have gained a little but nothing noticeable to me or my clothes. I think it was a necessary break to remind me that I like what I'm doing, and how I feel when I do it. I will continue to work until I start to rebel again, and will invite a break. Taking a break rather than "fighting it out" is so the right thing to do - it helps me see how much better I feel, how much healthier I know I am, when I'm eating healthy.

At this point, and long term, I'm a little bit unconcerned about weight loss. It finally dawned on me that over time I am getting better at this, and I am slimming down. It's taking ages it feels like, but I'm never going to unlearn all that I've learned. I'm doing this slowly, and mindfully - and it's truly part of who I am. So I know, for instance, that I'll have more days of healthy eating than not in 2010. I don't know if I can honestly say that about any year before that (since I was young).

As I get better at caring and cooking for myself and my family (just DH and the kitties for now) I will continue to improve my health.

One of my concerns has been that I hope to get pregnant later this year. Of course the looming thought of motherhood and pregnancy weight gain make me a little scared. But I have to trust that this bank of self-care is accruing interest, you know?